You should get the epic boots from the Sha of Anger. Automatic drop (quest item) on the first time you down it.

As for glyphs, I see two problems: 1) You don't have the Battle healer glyph, which is a severe survivability drop for your raid. 2) You have Dazing shield, which is rather counter-productive for a tank: why would you want mobs coming more slowly to you?

You should get the epic boots from the Sha of Anger. Automatic drop (quest item) on the first time you down it.

As for glyphs, I see two problems: 1) You don't have the Battle healer glyph, which is a severe survivability drop for your raid. 2) You have Dazing shield, which is rather counter-productive for a tank: why would you want mobs coming more slowly to you?

I've been Holy since FL, but I'm taking over the MT role for my guild in the upcoming patch. Given that we're currently 10/16H and pushing hard to (hopefully) kill H Empress before the patch, there are some fairly big shoes to fill.

Any ways I can improve? I'm going heavier into stam than I previously was because going into 25's undergeared can be fairly interesting on the spike damage front. I still have a few weeks of soaking up offspec gear (c'monnnn shoulders) before I get to tank progression, but I'm wondering what I should be looking into doing with VP. Upgrading my stam trinket seems like a wise choice, given that there's only one next tier.

After a good amount of reading and the desire for something a little more exciting, last night I switched from stamina-stacking back to a haste focus. I am hit capped, but am still about 1250 off of my Expertise hard cap though. I also have a subjective upgrade question before the patch.

1) Expertise hard cap. Thoughts on my gemming? Should I be gemming straight/hybrid expertise ONLY until I hit hard cap, before I even think of using a single straight/hybrid haste gem?

2) Pure stamina gems. I'm a bit scared to take them off, but I think I need to in order to cap. The Mr. Robot optimizer won't "let me" (I used Thecks edited weights), but I feel like capping should trump that in this gearing approach, from what I've read...

3) Trinkets - I have both stam trinkets. I also have the Vial. I would prefer to exp/hit cap through non-trinket gear/gems/chants alone so that my caps are independent of fight-specific trinket needs, but I acknowledge that the Vial could provide a giant chunk of expertise or haste. Thoughts?

4) Enchants. Similarly, should I go all out and use the haste/expertise enchants instead of Sha Armor Kits where available to help achieve capping and speed goals? This includes whether I should put the weapon chain on instead of Colossus.

5) Weapon / upgrade. I don't have any exciting long-term BIS gear. I reluctantly double-upgraded my shield when my points capped, and then finally the tier gloves off sha. I have enough valor for one more double-upgrade before the patch hits. Ignoring Mr. Robot, what do you think would be the best item to upgrade that I'm wearing, that will likely take the longest to replace? I've been considering upgrading my 496 Garalon helmet, but it's not Tier. Same with either stam trinket, but that seems kind of lame for a small health boost (it doesn't upgrade the proc??). Then there's the weapon. My 'best' weapon is LFR Sha 1 hander. I don't even have the LFR Scimitar. I have the +500 strength gem sitting in the bank, and am making progress on getting to the prismatic slot. Should I just ignore this weapon and work on a replacement, or should I go all out - double upgrade it, give it the gem, and polish off the prismatic socket too? Again, this is in comparison to my other options of what to do with 1500 valor before patch.

Context: I main tank for my guild's 10 man, regular progression team. We cycle through DK off-tanks, they have a bit less experience, and are all less well geared (still wearing some heroic blues). As such, my gear is pretty important to the group (I'm solid, but not perfect, skill-wise). Also important, we run with a priest and druid healer that are both exceptional and well-geared. I rarely die or cause wipes with the stam stacked, uncapped build I've been running for months - but our group regularly tries to include 1 newer person so we have always been needing more DPS. I feel like I can survive consistently and bring more DPS to the table with this new approach. We are currently 6/6 2/6 0/4, though I personally am at 6/6 5/6 1/4 with pugging, for reference. I don't foresee HMs any time soon.

Thank you so, so much in advance to anyone that reads this! And thank you so, so, so much to anyone that answers

Short answer, focus on expertise before anything else.Haste is a bad survivability stat (its just better than the other due to its dps contribution), its hit and expertise thats your good stats. If you want to not stack stamina, don't gem for it, however hybrid sta gems would be my preference if making such a switch.

Theck's stat weights for AMR focuses heavily on stam and that's his preference. I prefer a haste route and list stam at .9 on AMR just to get the results I find favorable. I raid in a 10 man guild and never have we wiped due to my health being a concern (640k raid buffed) and we're currently 11/16H.

Having said that, even running your chara with my stat weights and forcing hit/exp cap, you're still about 300 exp rating short of hard cap. You may want to consider getting a different trinket or two just to help hitting hard exp cap. To me, hit/exp cap are key and I've sat with them since around 483 ilvl and I been fairly all out on haste since I was able to push 5200 haste rating.

As far as what to upgrade, I'd say your boots. Elite protector boots upgraded to 511 may be a while to replace since Neck will prob be the first replaced since you can get that right off the bat.

I'll be using the trinkets I'm wearing for every fight, as of now. Other suggestions here are good, though I don't own any other good trinkets at the moment.

I feel like I'm good to go with my new setup, unless anyone has any final suggestions? I'm pretty torn on Colossus - I tried weapon chain, but then was able to hard cap without it. Thinking about Dancing Steel...

Your answer is found on this link viewtopic.php?p=718674#p718674. Theck shows the breakdown of each weapon, and from what I can tell Kilrak is best with the legendary gem until the next Kilrak with gem.

Minyatur wrote:Should I switch to the lower ilvl Weapon because of the legendary gem, or would it be better if I stay with Elegion?

Promdates wrote:Your answer is found on this link viewtopic.php?p=718674#p718674. Theck shows the breakdown of each weapon, and from what I can tell Kilrak is best with the legendary gem until the next Kilrak with gem.

Keep in mind this breakdown is purely a DPS comparison and the DPS difference between these two is miniscule. Not to mention that the comparison assumes certain levels of hit and expertise to which the axe gives greater contribution.

The axe gives you and additional 40 stam, 303 expertise and 26 hit at the expense of 473 strength and 302 mastery. Hit and expertise, up to their caps, and stam are more valuable for survivability. Until you get your Eye of the prince (applies a prismatic socket to a sha touched weapon rewarded from phase 2 of the legendary) I'd go with the axe. At your gear level the hit, expertise and stamina are going to be more helpful than parry, from strength, and mastery.

Edit: Also if you were to swap out your haste or mastery cog (depending on your preference) for a hit cog it would allow you to get pretty darn close to the expertise cap.

I have found the DPS comparison, as I posted above. I just couldn't find a survivability comparison (sta + exp + hit vs. str + mastery) like Gab made it.

I will stick to the axe till the phase 2 legendary then.

I had a hit cog in my trinket, but Mr. Robot changed this to haste. I can't tell you exactly why he did it, but perhaps, at my gear lvl, it's better to reforge parry/dodge to exp/hit, and use the haste gem. I'm not very good at theorycrafting to decide by my self, so i trust what Mr. Robot is telling me